Cambodia has announced plans to nominate US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his direct involvement in facilitating a ceasefire agreement with Thailand that ended one of the region’s deadliest border clashes in over a decade.
Speaking to reporters in Phnom Penh on Friday, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol expressed gratitude to Trump for helping restore peace.
“We acknowledge his great efforts for peace,” Chanthol said, adding that the former president deserved recognition through the world’s most prestigious international peace award, given for advancing “fellowship between nations.”
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The conflict, which erupted after a land mine blast along the Thai-Cambodian border injured five Thai soldiers, quickly escalated into a five-day battle. Both nations blamed each other for initiating hostilities. The violence claimed at least 43 lives and displaced more than 300,000 people across both sides of the border.
Last week, Trump intervened directly by urging the leaders of both Cambodia and Thailand to halt the fighting. He also warned that the United States would suspend trade negotiations with both countries unless the violence ceased.
A ceasefire was successfully negotiated in Malaysia on Monday, bringing an end to the clashes.
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Speaking during a recent trip to Scotland, Trump described the situation as dire and praised the resolution as a diplomatic success.
“Numerous people were killed and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints,” he said.
“They’ve been fighting for 500 years intermittently. And, we solved that war … we solved it through trade.”
Trump went on to explain that he made it clear to the parties involved that the US would not engage economically with nations involved in violent conflict.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to trade with anybody that’s killing each other,’” he added. “So we just got that one solved. And I’m going to call the two prime ministers who I got along with very, very well and speak to them right after this meeting and congratulate them. But it was an honor to be involved in that. That was going to be a very nasty war. Those wars have been very, very nasty.”
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Following the ceasefire announcement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised Trump’s leadership on social media platform X.
“President Trump made this happen. Give him the Nobel Peace Prize!,” she wrote.
This is not the first time international leaders have proposed Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had nominated Trump, while Pakistani officials in June indicated they would do the same for his role in de-escalating tensions between Pakistan and India.
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
